Taunton couple arrested on new drug charges

TAUNTON — A Harrison Avenue couple faces new drug charges after police executed a warrant this week in connection to an alleged prescription drug transaction from the previous week.

Jeffrey Eayers, 36, and Carrie Ann Rudolph, 38, both residents of a second-floor apartment at 26 Harrison Ave., each were charged with possession with intent to distribute a Class A drug, heroin, and a Class B prescription drug.

Police said Rudolph and Eayers had outstanding warrants in connection to the week-old incident when they were apprehended Tuesday afternoon.

After obtaining a search warrant for the apartment, police said detectives situated themselves outside and observed Eayers exit the apartment building and walk into nearby Desa's Fish Market. They grabbed him as he walked out of the store, informing him they had a warrant for his arrest.

Detectives brought him upstairs, knocked on the door and were allowed inside the apartment by Rudolph. Police said when they asked Eayers if the apartment contained illegal drugs, he replied that it did not.

Police said when they asked the same of Rudolph, she said she had some pills in her pocketbook. A search of the bedroom, they said, turned up two prescription pill bottles filled out in her name.

One of them contained four alprazolam pills, also known as Xanax, and two cyclobenzaprine pills, a muscle relaxant, police said. The other container, they said, contained 33 oxycodone painkiller pills.

Police said the maximum dosage of the oxycodone, which was prescribed to Rudolph on Feb. 6, was supposed to be three pills over the course of 24 hours. Because 42 pills were unaccounted for, police said they charged Rudolph with possession to distribute a Class B controlled substance.

A further search, police said, turned up half a gram of heroin and a single dosage of Suboxone, a painkiller commonly prescribed to counter heroin addiction.

Police also said a small chrome cylinder found stashed in a pillow case matched the description of a pill dispenser the couple used the previous Thursday when they allegedly sold Percocet painkillers to a Taunton man.

The two warrants from last week's incident included charges of distribution of a Class B drug and conspiracy to violate a drug law.

Rudolph was released on personal recognizance after being arraigned on the more recent charges this week in Taunton District Court. She is due back in court March 3 for a pretrial hearing on those charges and also for arraignment on the older charges.

Eayers was held on $1,000 cash bail and is scheduled for a pretrial hearing on March 3.

Harrison Avenue has been the scene of drug arrests and violent incidents during the past five years.

In June 2013, police arrested two men on heroin charges as result of a search warrant at another Harrison Avenue apartment building. One was arrested in the house and the other in a car after allegedly buying heroin from the first individual.

That same apartment building was hit with at least a dozen bullets in April 2011, police said. No one was reported injured nor were any arrests made in connection to that incident.